“I’ll sit there and watch the phone ring and be like, ‘UGH! Why are they calling?’” said Ms. Morrison, “99 percent” of whose plans are made via text, email or “BBM” (that’s BlackBerry Messaging for all you Luddites out there). “People definitely get annoyed.”

Doug Murray, 29, of Bushwick, who teaches middle school in the Bronx, has a similar habit. “Most often it takes two or three calls before I’ll call someone back,” said Mr. Murray, who usually emails from his T-Mobile Smartphone whenever he’s in a WiFi hot spot. The casual “catch-up” call, he said, is a thing of the past: “Even on friends’ birthdays, I’ll just send them an email or a text. It sounds pretty lame, but it’s a habit I’ve fallen into.”

Whoever thought we’d miss the cell-phone jerks yapping away on Starbucks lines and crowded intersections from Soho to the Upper West Side? More and more they’ve been replaced by a new and even more off-putting breed of zombielike technophiles; heads slouched downward at their palms; eyes glued to miniature computer screens; thumbs rapidly tapping away on the same devices that would have been pressed up against their ears a year or two ago.

Gabbing is out. These days, it’s straight to voice mail. And even when callers repeatedly dial their closest friends, it’s often not a ring tone they get in return, but a text message—“hey. you call?”—or a 10-word email ending in a phrase like “Sent from my BlackBerry.”

Yes, New Yorkers have come to loathe the act of talking on the phone. Why bother, when they can just type on a tiny touchscreen? It’s so convenient, so effortless—not like having a real conversation in which you actually have to listen and focus and respond. And suddenly people are keeping as much distance between their phones and their mouths as possible.

This sociological shift prompted the following inquiry on a Yahoo! Q&A forum on Nov. 23: “Why don’t people answer their cell phone[s] anymore?”

“I HATE talking on the phone,” wrote one New Yorker (presumably from his phone), within 30 seconds of receiving a reporter’s email asking the same question. “People call me and I text them back.”

“I don’t have a B-Ber or an iPhone and yet I seldom talk on the phone AT ALL,” another, Maureen Flynn, a 26-year-old corporate philanthropy consultant who lives in Queens, chimed in moments later. “I T9 like a champ!” she said of the letter-predicting technology used for quick and easy text-messaging.

STATISTICS CONFIRM that cell phones are getting more love from their owners’ thumbs than their lips. During the first six months of 2008, mobile users in the U.S. sent or received almost 385 billion text messages versus the 295 billion calls that were made from or received on cell phones, according to data from the Cellular Telecommunications Industry Association, a trade organization that tracks wireless trends. It was the first time ever that text messages surpassed calls, said Bob Roche, the association’s vice president for research. Emailing and instant messaging from cell phones is also on the rise. In September of this year, 34 million Americans accessed email on their phones, versus 23 million in September of 2007, said Jaimee Steele, a spokeswoman for the digital media research firm ComScore. Likewise, 22 million people IM-ed from their phones this September versus 15 million during the same month a year earlier, according to ComScore’s data.

It seems like the fancier these smart phones become, the less they actually resemble, well … phones.

“We say every day that these are no longer just phones, they’re ‘personal communication devices,’” said David Samberg, a spokesman for Verizon Wireless, which just rolled out its latest BlackBerry, a touchscreen model called the Storm that has received poor reviews thus far. “They’re minicomputers.”

And that is precisely why they appeal to people like 27-year-old Katia Bachko, an assistant editor at the Columbia Journalism Review currently between apartments, who in July made the big leap and bought an iPhone.

Ms. Bachko said the little gizmo has kicked her phone call “avoidance disorder” into high gear. Just ask the friend she saw the other day with whom she hasn’t had more than a “two-sentence” phone conversation in the past three years. Or the guy she recently dated for five months, with whom she spoke on the phone a total of (no joke) one time.

“When I look at my cell phone, I don’t look at it as a way of talking to people,” said Ms. Bachko, speaking from her landline in the CJR offices. “This is just the thing I use for text messaging or to check email.”

Ms. Flynn, the philanthropy consultant, lamented the change.

“When I was in high school it was such a big deal to get my own line and talk for hours upon hours about nothing and everything all at once,” she wrote, “and now I don’t even want to call and ask my friends what bar they’re at because it takes too much effort. Sigh.”

Why don’t people want to talk anymore?

Dalton Conley, chair of the sociology department at N.Y.U., suggested it’s because smart phones enable both our laziness and our A.D.D.

“Texting you can do while you’re doing something else. A verbal conversation requires a lot more focus,” said Professor Conley, whose book Elsewhere, USA, about technology’s impact on daily life, will be out from Pantheon on Jan. 13. “People were doodling in meetings long before there were text messages.”

Of course, that’s not necessarily a good thing.

“The debate is, does this constant texting of short, Twitter-like messages then facilitate in-depth conversation, or does it supplant it?” Professor Conley said. “I think it supplants it. It reduces people’s commitments. It’s easy to just text someone to cancel plans and not have to face hearing their disappointment or frustration.”

That’s why Nicole Ferejohn, a 27-year-old who works on Wall Street and lives in Carroll Gardens, is wary of her brand-new Storm.

One night a few weeks ago, Ms. Ferejohn was hanging out with a group of friends when she realized, after numerous requests for her “BBM name,” that she was the only person of the bunch who didn’t have one. She caved into the pressure and ordered a BlackBerry the following morning.

“I felt like I needed to have it because I didn’t want to be left out, but the fact of the matter is, I’ve held out this long because I don’t want to become one of those people who freaks out if they accidentally leave their phone at home. It makes it too easy, and you lose that effort you have to make with people,” said Ms. Ferejohn, who was drowning her anxieties in a pint of India pale ale at a dimly lit East Village pub one evening a few days before her BlackBerry came in the mail. She took a sip and frowned. “I don’t want this to become the only way we communicate. That would be so sad!”

jpompeo@observer.com

New York University sociology chair Dalton Conley (pictured) sold his sister Alexandra, the former executive director of the Soho Repertory Theater, a two-unit apartment at 323 West 11th Street for $1.44 million this month, according to city records. “I definitely have a lot more money than she does, and that’s why she gets the hand-me-downs,” Mr. Conley said. “I’m older, I’m in a more established industry; she was working for a small black-box theater.”

What about childhood? “I was more of the good kid. She was more of the punk hanging out on St. Marks Place in 1981.”

The professor’s 2004 book The Pecking Order: Which Siblings Succeed and Why has a cover with four whole eggshells and a cracked fifth, though the professor’s relationship with his sister isn’t black and white. “It’s not like I’m rich and she’s poor! But there’s definitely an economic difference,” he said.

Their real estate deals started in January 2005, when the siblings were living a few buildings away from each other on West 11th Street. The unit next door to Ms. Conley’s apartment came on the market, though she couldn’t afford to buy it. “But with a big stretch, I could,” Mr. Conley said.

So the brother and sister switched apartments. “I sold her mine and I bought hers,” he said, “and then I bought the one next door, and then I bought a little strip of hallway and created one unit. … It wasn’t quite a swap. I think she gave me $150,000 because mine was a two-bedroom, hers was a one-bedroom.”

When his wife, the artist and engineer Natalie Jeremijenko, returned from a job in California, she wasn’t happy with the new place: “She doesn’t like quaint cutesy little Greenwich Village; she likes lofts,” he said. So, by last November, they’d paid $1.65 million for an apartment on West 29th Street, and agreed to sell the two-unit place on West 11th back to his sister and her husband.

Mr. Conley said the $1.44 million price was lower than what he could have gotten, and he agreed to it only because selling to his sister meant saving money on things like brokers’ fees. “I do a bit of economics, too,” he said.

But that sale closed this month, and his new $1.65 million apartment was bought last year. “There’s when the beauty of a sibling comes in,” he said. “She even lent us money so that we could do a down payment before we had sold. … Ironically, we really didn’t get along growing up, we had vicious fights, but somehow there’s a very high degree of trust now.”

On the downside, both siblings have had to intermittently move back into their parents’ place because of all the real estate dealings. “I’m sick of it. I’m not moving again,” Mr. Conley said. “I think we both think that now.”

mabelson@observer.com

Was the publisher of the Times, in fact, considering killing off the upcoming special opinion section of the paper, guest-edited by Mr. Grazer?

Shortly thereafter, Mr. Conley received confirmation from both camps. Sure enough, the Times had decided to spike the entire section amidst concern about a romantic relationship between editorial page editor Andres Martinez and a publicist close to Mr. Grazer.

Like the rest of the columns commissioned by Mr. Grazer, Mr. Conley's contribution-- an essay on how race and gender bias in the electorate may affect the current presidential campaign--would no longer be running in this Sunday's paper as originally planned. "Everybody was very apologetic," explained Mr. Conley when reached at his NYU office on Friday morning.

Mr. Conley, for one, remains hopeful that his piece--and perhaps the rest of the section-- will eventually be published elsewhere.

"I haven't seen the other pieces, so I don't know how much they work as a package," said Mr. Conley. "Given that this is Brian's vision and he is the editor of them, I trust where he wants to try and place them. My piece in particular is not time sensitive. It's not pegged to an immediate news issue, so I'm not particularly stressed about it."

How did the assignment come up in the first place?

Mr. Conley says he first met Mr. Grazer this past fall at a dinner party hosted by Seed magazine at the Lever House restaurant on Park Avenue. Both Mr. Grazer and Mr. Conley were being honored as part of the magazine's feature on "nine revolutionary minds." At the dinner, Mr. Grazer took an interest in Mr. Conley's work. Months later, he sought out the star sociologist to contribute to his star-crossed opinion section. Along the way, Mr. Grazer also commissioned a piece from another honorary dinner guest at the Seed party, Nobel-prize winning scientist Eric Kandel.

Mr. Conley pointed out that, before the current dust-up, he had previously published three pieces in the op-ed section of the L.A. Times. How upset is he about the displacement of his forth piece?

"For me, it's not a big deal," said Mr. Conley. "I'm hoping that these pieces will still come out somewhere as a group or individually. In my humdrum academic life, it's been pretty exciting to be involved in a Hollywood sex scandal, especially when there's no fall out for me."

--Felix Gillette

In the meantime, police officers in helicopters tried to warn their firefighter colleagues that the towers seemed in imminent danger of collapse. Their warnings went unheard-the police and fire communication systems were not coordinated.

After the horror of 9/11, the city vowed to improve the Fire Department's communications system. In fact, that promise was a long time coming-Fire Department personnel who were at the World Trade Center bombing in 1993 had complained about the faulty radio system, to no avail.

The federal government recently undermined this urgent task by cutting a $54 million appropriation designed to improve emergency communications around the country. About $6 million was earmarked for New York.

As 9/11 demonstrated, local emergency workers are on the front line of the war on terror. But the Bush administration apparently has little appreciation for the task assigned to firefighters, police officers and other emergency personnel. George W. Bush's Department of Homeland Security-run by a rather undistinguished minion, Tom Ridge-cut the money designated for improved communications in an absurd exercise in cost-cutting.

At a time of record budget deficits, the Bush administration is looking to save a few dollars by denying local governments the money they need to further enhance their ability to respond to terrorism. What could these people be thinking? The federal government is running a half-trillion dollar deficit; $6 million would be a drop in the bucket. Mr. Bush would not shortchange our troops in Iraq, but he is doing just that here at home.

Luckily for New York, the Fire Department already has ironed out some of its communications problems. But that $6 million would have paid for even better communications systems and coordination.

Senator Charles Schumer rightly denounced the White House's priorities, saying that the federal government has "pulled the rug out from under our cops and firefighters."

After 9/11, we know the importance of well-trained emergency workers. We cannot send these men and women into battle, however, without the best equipment. How unfortunate that the White House continues to underfund New York City to a mind-boggling degree.

Siblings and Success

It's the sort of thing that's rarely spoken about in polite company, but everyone has an example from his or own circle of friends: siblings who have wildly divergent levels of success in the world. As New York University sociologist Dalton Conley writes in his new book, The Pecking Order: Which Siblings Succeed and Why , there's an American myth that within families, a certain balance exists, and that people who are thriving in their career, social prestige and net worth would be likely to have equally successful siblings. But Mr. Conley's research found that within families there is often profound economic disparity between siblings; indeed, he claims that 75 percent of the country's income inequality can be explained by differences between siblings.

But no one wants to admit that such Darwinian odds exist within the cozy family unit. As Mr. Conley recently told The New York Times ' Emily Eakin, "There's this enormous issue of sibling inequality that we sweep under the rug because we want to see the family as a haven in a harsh world, operating outside the dog-eat-dog world of American capitalism." But for every sibling success story-George W. and Jeb Bush, for example-there are, according to Mr. Conley, many more tales of siblings whose life achievements are so far apart, it's hard to believe they were raised in the same family, such as Bill and Roger Clinton. Sibling relationships have generally been left to psychologists to explore; Mr. Conley suggests that economists should be in the thick of the research. Rather than comparing households or social groups, a comparison of sibling triumphs and tragedies might lead to provocative new ways of looking at society.

Mr. Conley also had some news for parents: If you have two kids and are thinking about a third, you should know that "middle children" tend to suffer the most, economically and education-wise, in the family unit. He found that the middle child tends to be allocated fewer financial resources all around; indeed, a second child's chances of attending private school drop 25 percent when a third child is born.

Maybe it's time for everyone to reread the story of Cain and Abel.

Ave Atque Vale : Lutèce

Over the last week, every food critic and his brother have been weeping into their Alsatian tarts over the Feb. 14 closing of Lutèce. But those fortunate enough to have experienced André Soltner's Lutèce know that the restaurant closed for, all intents and purposes, in 1994, when the chef sold his business to Michael Weinstein's Ark Restaurants group.

It wasn't just that Mr. Soltner was one of the best chefs this country has seen. His warmth and generosity of spirit added immeasurably to the dining experience. "Cooking for someone is like having a love affair," Mr. Soltner said in Irene Daria's 1993 book Lutèce: A Day in the Life of America's Greatest Restaurant . And for more than 30 years, he strove to make each of his customers feel like the object of his affection. Silver-haired and stately, Mr. Soltner would shuttle between the kitchen and the dining room, sizing up the humeur du jour of each patron, and then cook accordingly. "He goes table to table to look into your eyes," Thomas Kelly, a restaurant professor at Cornell University's School of Hotel Administration, said in Ms. Daria's book. Who knows what Mr. Soltner saw, but if he made chicken soup for you, it tasted like chicken soup for the soul.

Lutèce didn't start out that way. The townhouse restaurant at 249 East 50th Street was opened in 1961 by an airline caterer named André Sussman, whose Francophilia prompted him to adopt a fake surname, Surmain, and the snooty, surly attitude of New York's preeminent French restaurateur at the time, Le Pavillon's Henri Soulé. Fortunately, Mr. Surmain had the sense to hire Mr. Soltner, who in 1972 assumed control of the restaurant, and with his wife, Simone, showed New Yorkers that an exceptional French dining experience need not come with an amuse bouche of sadism.

Mr. Soltner ran the kitchen, Ms. Soltner presided over the dining room-and when they closed Lutèce at night, they headed to the fourth floor of the townhouse to sleep. Their devotion did not allow for time off or sick days, and it insured that whoever succeeded them at Lutèce would be overshadowed by the Soltner legacy.

When Time magazine asked Ms. Soltner what she would do if her husband ever sold Lutèce, she replied: "I would live." Who could begrudge them that? And yet, almost 10 years later, it's still difficult to accept the end of the affair.